


WNKHGB Episode 3: The Offal Truth

by rabidchild67



Series: Where No Knives Have Gone Before [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, F/M, Food, M/M, Pre-Slash, Top Chef
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 3 of a Star Trek:AOS/Top Chef fusion featuring the cast of the reboot!</p><p>The cheftestants square off in an offal Quickfire and Spock makes friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WNKHGB Episode 3: The Offal Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Gosh, sorry this chapter took so darn long to complete. I promise I have a plot all worked out.
> 
>  
> 
> [Master post on LJ](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/139970.html)

**Episode 3: The Offal Truth**

Spock sometimes felt like he was invisible.

This was not necessarily an unwelcome thing to him; he’d spent much of his childhood living all over the world with his parents, and was therefore always the new child in school, the outsider. As a result, he’d developed a skill at remaining in the background, as a defense mechanism. 

It was a trait that seemed to have reasserted itself recently, with his being cast in this reality show competition, and he didn’t much mind. He had decided early on that the key to victory was to put up the best food he was capable of, always. He was who he was, and so he was confident that the excellence he always strove for would shine regardless of how he behaved with or towards his fellow Cheftestants. Let them shout and cry and complain and fuck each other – Spock would not let it affect him. He had come for better things. He had come to win. If it meant he got less camera time, or was not anyone’s darling, that was irrelevant. 

Besides, if you’re invisible, they don’t see you coming.

He looked up as he heard someone coming down the stairs, and watched as Jim Kirk bopped into the kitchen, semi-clothed (AGAIN), and began to rummage in the refrigerator of the cast house, looking for something. Apparently finding it – a bottle of chocolate milk – he straightened and cracked off the lid, downing half of it in one gulp. Spock, once again, sat unnoticed at the kitchen table, reading the morning paper. Given Kirk’s reactions to him over the last couple of mornings, he chose to remain silent this time.

Not that he stayed unnoticed. Jim startled slightly as he turned around and caught sight of Spock, but this time did not have the shocked look on his face as before. “You know, I should just learn to expect that you’ll just _be there_ , and save myself the adrenaline rush,” he began.

“Good morning.”

“Listen,” Kirk began, after downing the remainder of his milk, “about yesterday…”

“A difference in opinion as to our approaches,” Spock said simply. While he would readily admit to being quite annoyed at Jim’s flouting of the rules of the previous day’s food truck challenge, he could not argue with their result; in the end, they had won. “I felt we aired our differences, and have moved on.”

“Well, good to see you don’t hold a grudge.”

Spock raised an eyebrow at the comment but remained otherwise silent. Jim took a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter and sat in the chair opposite Spock. “I rarely encounter anyone up earlier than me,” he said, peeling the fruit. “What time do you get up?”

“Chefs do typically tend to sleep in,” Spock agreed. “I generally rise at 4:30. I find it allows me time to meditate on the rigors of the day ahead: menu planning and so on. It is quite calming. I have noticed that, regardless of the excesses of the night prior, you are out on your run each morning.”

Kirk’s eyebrows furrowed and Spock feared he had insulted the man, adding quickly, “I am merely making an observation. I mean to say, I think running provides you with the same benefit that meditation does for me.”

“A good run clears my head,” he agreed. “I’m next to useless without it.”

Spock smiled slightly, relieved Jim hadn’t taken his comment as an insult. 

“Would you like to come?” Finished with his banana, Kirk began to pull the t-shirt he had slung over his shoulder over his head; it featured a crudely-rendered drawing of a dish running beside a spoon, and was a bit too tight across his chest. 

Spock swallowed and fingered the straw in his protein shake. “I am not much of a runner; as a child, I was asthmatic, and never developed the requisite stamina.”

“Aw, too bad,” he said, rising, and Spock thought he seemed genuinely regretful. Jim did a few cursory stretches, bending nearly in half as he stretched the muscles at the backs of his legs. Spock swallowed again, averting his eyes as Kirk’s shorts rode down slightly, exposing the tops of his buttocks; as on prior occasions, Spock noticed he wore no underwear. He stood, threw his milk container into the recycling and left through the terrace door.

Spock watched the space Kirk had just occupied for several seconds, thinking about the strangely intense young man, who he’d found intriguing since the moment he’d first seen him, getting his ass handed to him by Brian on that first day. Nyota said she thought he was a flash in the pan, with no real skills besides his pretty face; Spock knew that was wrong – he’d tasted Jim’s food and seen his utter focus when he worked. He overheard Gaila saying Jim had come up in kitchens all over France, and that he’d worked with Roubuchon, Keller, Morimoto. Spock didn’t doubt his experience, though he did wonder when such a young man would have had the time and opportunity to train with three such accomplished chefs. Spock suspected most of the information about Jim was conjecture or rumor, much like the information he’d overheard bandied around about himself. 

While Jim had ingratiated himself with most of the others, and flirted with nearly everyone, Spock had seen how keenly he observed everyone’s work, and how he could think on his feet and respond well under pressure. Jim had been taking mental notes about everyone, noting everything they did, including Spock. And like Spock, he missed nothing. 

This intrigued Spock, and challenged him, and attracted him. 

Spock might be the invisible man, but he thought Jim could see him, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. 

\----

 **AMANDA** : Good morning!  
 **SPOCK** : You are up early. Are you getting enough rest?  
 **AMANDA** : Yes, dear :D You know, you’re worse than *my* mother  
 **SPOCK** : We are both concerned for your health  
 **AMANDA** : And I am feeling quite well these days, actually. Had two servings of Bucatini al’Amatriciana for dinner last night. That is hard to text…  
 **SPOCK** : I am pleased your appetite is back.  
 **AMANDA** : For the time being, anyway. Tell me about yesterday’s challenge  
 **SPOCK** : My team won  
 **AMANDA** : That is terrific. What was the winning dish?  
 **SPOCK** : Haggis potstickers  
 **AMANDA** : I don’t even know how to react to that  
 **SPOCK** : They were surprisingly successful and delicious. As it was, I feared a teammate would be asked to go home  
 **AMANDA** : I thought you said you’d won?  
 **SPOCK** : I think perhaps that is the only thing that saved him. He bent the rules to ensure a favorable outcome. I found it necessary to have words with him.  
 **AMANDA** : Which person was this?  
 **SPOCK** : His name is Kirk – the American who trained in France  
 **AMANDA** : The one who walks around naked all the time? ;)  
 **SPOCK** : I wish Nyota had not shared that with you  
 **AMANDA** : Just living vicariously, darling. But why were you so harsh with him?  
 **SPOCK** : I was upset. If his gamble had not paid off, it might have gone badly for us. He made a unilateral decision and did not consult the rest of us  
 **AMANDA** : A well-run kitchen is not a democracy.  
 **SPOCK** : Do not quote Father at me.  
 **AMANDA** : Yes, well, sometimes he makes a good point.  
 **SPOCK** : You sound like his publicist.  
 **AMANDA** : Don’t be rude, dear.  
 **SPOCK** : I apologize. I must be going – we are about to leave for the day.  
 **AMANDA** : Good luck, then. I look forward to a full report. Love you.  
 **SPOCK** : And I you.  
 **AMANDA** : Give my love to Nyota.  
 **SPOCK** : I will.

 

Spock looked up to find Nyota standing over him. “We’re leaving in ten. You texting with your mom?” He nodded. “How’s she feeling?”

“She is in good spirits, and has regained some of her appetite.” 

“That’s good news, right? Means she’s getting better.” She sat down beside him and leaned into his side. Her warm presence beside him was always calming, and he hoped she was right. He didn’t like to talk about his mother’s illness, but Nyota knew instinctively when he needed reassuring. Like this morning, the cheeriness of his mother’s tone notwithstanding, he worried that she was awake at this hour – it was before 7:00 am, and she should have been sleeping. 

He tried to put it out of his mind, to focus on the day’s challenge, and so rose and went up to his room to retrieve his tools and chef coat. He settled with Nyota in the third row of the first SUV, and they were soon joined by Kirk and Gaila in the second row, with Leonard McCoy driving and a cameraman in the front passenger seat. Spock eyed the man with a blank expression, but in truth by now he had grown to resent the presence of the cameras as much as some of his fellow cast mates did. He knew he was being irrational in his feelings – he had signed up to be part of a reality show competition, after all – but he was finding it difficult to get used to constantly being on display for the camera. He never felt like he could relax, and his daily meditation was doing little to take the edge off.

Others, apparently, had no such difficulties. Spock couldn’t help but notice Jim and Gaila talking animatedly with each other, their language overridden with innuendo. 

“I wonder what we’ll be up for today,” he began.

“That’s what she said,” she giggled.

“You know, that doesn’t work for _everything_.”

“That’s what she said,” she repeated. He laughed and nudged her with an elbow to the ribs, which apparently tickled her and she leapt away. He chased after, fingers digging into her sides, making her shriek with laughter.

“Don’t make me turn this car around, children,” McCoy said, his tone not unlike that of a weary parent, and they both straightened up in their seats. 

“He started it,” Gaila countered. 

Jim merely smiled, avoiding taking the bait, and instead got closer to her on their shared seat. She settled against him as well, snacking on the bag of trail mix she had brought as they moved through traffic. 

Spock used the fact that he had sunglasses on to his advantage, canting his head as if he was looking out the window, but keeping an eye on the couple in the seat in front of him. They had their heads bent together with a kind of ease he had never been capable of with anyone in his life except Nyota and his mother; that they were this close after less than a week’s acquaintance was fascinating to him. He felt a kind of pang in his chest at the sight, wishing as he rarely did that his make-up could allow him to behave in that manner. But forging friendships had never been easy for him, romantic relationships even more difficult, and he often felt pangs of loneliness, as he did now.

Gaila took an almond from the bag and held it in front of Jim’s lips; Spock watched, surreptitiously, as his tongue darted out, taking the morsel into his mouth, and munching on it while making exaggerated yummy-sounds. Spock looked down, conscious that he was staring, that he was feeling just a little jealous of them. 

Spock had never been one to be at ease in his own skin, not with the upbringing he’d had. With his father the formidable man he was, combined with the fact his family was often the object of much scrutiny, it was just easier to shut any kind of emotional outburst or demonstration down lest it get him into trouble. 

When he looked up again, Jim had laid his head on Gaila’s shoulder as she continued to feed him tidbits, and the angle of the sunlight coming through the car’s windows made his blue eyes seem nearly translucent. The sight of it took Spock’s breath, and he shifted in his seat. 

“You OK?” Nyota murmured so that only he could hear, and he answered something non-committal. She rested a reassuring hand on his knee, and now Spock realized she must be responding to his worry about his mother’s health and felt even worse.

“I am well, thank you,” he said quietly, and gave her a smile to ease her mind; she worried about him too much, and this pained him.

\----

They arrived at the Top Chef kitchens and were asked to wait while the production staff made some kind of arrangements inside. Spock stood with Scotty and Nyota at one end of the group, and when he glanced over to see what Jim was up to, he found that the man was looking back at him. They both looked away abruptly once they realized they were staring at each other, and Spock could feel the heat in his cheeks as he blushed. When Spock looked at Jim again, his eyes were on something else, and Spock found himself unaccountably disappointed not to have that blue-eyed gaze on him.

Padma’s arrival with the guest judge for the Quickfire challenge took everyone’s attention soon enough. “Chefs, I’d like to introduce you to Chef Chris Cosentino, winner of Top Chef Masters and owner/chef at Incanto here in San Francisco.”

“Hi, chefs,” the man in question said, smiling at them enthusiastically from beside Padma. Spock raised an eyebrow, impressed; he was a fan of the chef’s cuisine and eagerly looked forward to what he suspected would be a fascinating challenge. 

“As you may know,” Padma went on, “Chef Cosentino is known as the King of Offal.”

That comment got a few laughs, not least of which were from the man in question, who continued, “Easy to say I’ve made my name by not being afraid of a few unusual ingredients. What about you guys – do you think you have the guts to try these out?”

With that, a production assistant rolled aside a partition that had been set up in front of a table that had been adorned with a variety of proteins. From his vantage, Spock could make out beef tripe, kidneys, livers, and a variety of other organ meats. 

Padma picked up the narrative, “Nose to tail is more than a fad these days, it’s a way to truly get the most out of an animal’s sacrifice to feed us. Your challenge will be to use these less popular proteins to create a delicious dish that Chef Cosentino will feature in his restaurant. You have one hour.” 

Unlike the rest of the contestants, Spock headed for the equipment room, securing one of the few pressure cookers from a shelf, then went to the table to secure his chosen protein. As he’d expected, no one had opted for the tripe, and so he picked it up and took it to his station. His final stop was the pantry where he picked up other key ingredients for the curry he planned to make.

Around him, the other chefs bantered cheerfully, a sound he would normally have tuned out, but he found he welcomed today. This group of people flirting and grousing with each other made him realize how much he missed the buzz and energy of being in a restaurant kitchen.

“What ye doin’ there, lass?” Scotty asked Nyota from the station next to hers.

“Busting balls,” she said bluntly, taking a cleaver to the bull testicles she’d chosen. Spock smiled to himself at her tone, which was a challenge to all. Every man in the room flinched.

“Gently, now!” Scotty protested with a laugh.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got just the right touch.” She caressed them lovingly before dropping the pieces into a saucepan to be poached. 

Kirk laughed out loud. “Hey, whatcha wind up with, Bones?” he asked McCoy, who stood hovering over his station scratching his head. 

“Kidneys. I can’t get the idea these are the body’s filtration system out of my head.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“They smell like pee.”

“They do not.”

“What have you got?”

“Lamb’s feet.”

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for ‘em, Jim, and I’m not above begging.”

“No can do – I’m sure there’s a rule or something.”

“Sure, _now_ you follow the rules,” McCoy groused, and stomped off to the pantry.

“Hey Spock, you gonna use all those chickpeas?”

Spock eyed the dried chickpeas on his station and then looked up at Kirk. “I am not.” He measured out what he would need and went to give the rest to Kirk.

“So, I’ve been wondering – is Spock your first or last name?”

“It is my name,” he replied as he returned to his station. Spock had always been elusive about his family, even as a child. When people learned who his parents were, things tended to change. “You may call me ‘Mister’ if it helps,” he added archly, to another round of laughter, including from Kirk. Spock noticed how his eyes crinkled at the edges when he laughed, and found the effect very appealing. He smiled back, but then his eyes fell on Nero, who was not laughing.

Nero was scowling at him, as he had been doing the last few days, and it ought to have been enough to discomfit Spock – the man was nearly three inches taller and could certainly best him in a physical confrontation. But Spock had never been one to back down from anything; even when he was young and a group of classmates mocked and pushed him around because of his mixed race, he did not let them get away with it, taking on the group’s leader and thrashing him completely. He therefore stared at Nero unblinkingly, not looking away until the other man did, though when he returned to his mise en place, he could feel his hands shaking from the adrenaline.

As often happened, the time period for the challenge seemed to fly by, though Spock himself was wiping up drips from the edge of the plate when time was called. He watched as Padma and Chef Cosentino visited each station in turn. Padma’s eyes lit up when she tasted Spock’s Tripe and Lamb Curry with Chickpeas, saying it was something that reminded her of her mother’s cooking. Spock smiled at her as a pleased sort of warmth settled into his chest – such a comment was what he lived for.

The judges moved on around the room, and in the end, the overall winner was Nyota, whose Rocky Mountain Oysters on the Halfshell had Chef Cosentino wishing for seconds. She made a triumphant little squeal of delight and danced a bit in place, and Spock was very proud of her. The others in the top three were Scotty and Nero, who fist-bumped whoever stood near him, including young Janice Rand, who might have fallen over if she hadn’t been standing so close to Sulu. 

Their enthusiasm was short-lived, as Padma began to speak again. “The three winners will be captaining three different teams for the Elimination Challenge. Nyota, since you won the challenge, you get first choice.”

Nyota chose Spock, then the other two made their choices in turn. In the end, three teams of five stood together: Nyota with Spock, Leonard, Christine and Gaila; Scotty with Jim, Janice, Hikaru and Pavel; and Nero chose Brian, Sabine, Carol and Gary.

Next, three older gentlemen were let into the kitchen by a production assistant, taking their marks at the front of the room with Padma. “Chefs, I’d like you to meet your ‘clients’ for the challenge – Admirals Barnett, Archer, and Komack of the US Navy.” The three were in service dress uniforms and stood imposingly with their hats under their arms, and each nodded as he was named. “Hello chefs,” Archer said to them, to murmured greetings. “At ease,” Komack joked, and everyone laughed politely.

“All three of these men have served our country through long and distinguished careers, and are about to retire. There will be a cocktail reception on the grounds of the Presidio tomorrow night, and you will be catering for 200 guests. Each team will prepare a menu based on input from the guests of honor. The winning team will be chosen by the guests. You will have three hours to prep today, and three onsite tomorrow. You have twenty minutes to meet with your clients and menu-plan, and then one hour to shop. Good luck.”

Padma and Chef Cosentino took their leave as the chefs each descended on their assigned “client.” Nyota’s team was paired with Admiral Barnett, a tall, imposing-looking man who was nevertheless quick to laugh, and whose Southern roots immediately endeared him to McCoy. He described himself and his wife as adventurous eaters, with a love of seafood. 

“What did you serve at your wedding?” Nyota asked, and Barnett laughed in surprise. “We eloped. But we went to her favorite diner afterwards and she had steak and eggs. I had a tuna melt.”

They all shared another laugh and chatted with him for another five minutes before they found an unoccupied corner and began to plan their menu. Spock had an idea for a tuna BLT he’d made successfully in the past, and thought it would appeal to the Admiral. Nyota claimed the steak and eggs idea, and Leonard said he thought he knew what a Southern boy would like. They discussed strategies and service briefly before time was called and they had to leave to go to the market to buy their ingredients.

Spock made immediately for the rear of the store and struck up a conversation about grades of tuna with the fishmonger, whose embroidered lab coat displayed the name, “Gus”; they had on hand a beautiful loin of sashimi-grade tuna that would be well incorporated into his concept for his dish. He asked if he could inspect it more closely, and Gus invited him to come into the back – along with the camera operator and sound man that were his constant companions. He was shown all of the tuna that was on hand, and gave Gus specific instructions as to its butchering. Gus laughed.

“May I ask what you find amusing?” Spock asked. He found many people laughed when he was acting quite seriously, and it often confounded him. 

“Nothing, I just like to see a chef who knows what he wants.”

While he was waiting, another worker emerged from the walk-in – her name badge said, “Amy” – with a crate that she laid on a cart, in preparation for taking the product to the display case. 

“May I inquire – is that uni?”

“Just off the docks,” she said proudly, lifting the crate slightly so the cameraman could get a good angle on it. The aroma coming off of the sea urchins was exquisite, reminding Spock of a summer he’d spent in Osaka as a teen. Thinking a moment, he adjusted his plan for his dish and asked for Amy to package up the quantity he would need for the new concept he’d just thought up. He left the fish counter feeling energized for the challenge that lay ahead, and could almost ignore Nero completely as he gave Spock the stinkeye in the produce section.

Their three hours of prep went off without many issues, the kitchen abuzz with fifteen chefs getting ready for a significant challenge the next evening. Cocktail parties were a challenge to get right, as a balance of flavors as well as portion size could make or break a dish. As well, many dishes required last minute saucing or other prep that could delay efficiency in service, and nothing irked Spock more than the knowledge that a customer might wait over-long for their food. He thought his own dish mitigated that issue as much as possible, and sailed through his prep with his head down, focused both on the job at hand and the time left. By the end of the afternoon, he had accomplished everything he had set out to, packed up his food, labeled and staged it in exactly the order he’d need it the next day. 

Their day over at an unusually early time – 6:00 pm – the cheftestants all decided to go out to dinner, and chose a Thai restaurant a few blocks from the house. Spock felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as he took his seat in the center of an old-fashioned banquette, whose red leatherette upholstery was slightly cracked in places. Taking out the phone, he saw a text waiting from his mother. 

**AMANDA:** How went the wars today, darling?  
 **SPOCK:** Acceptably. Nyota won the Quickfire challenge.  
 **AMANDA:** That is wonderful – tell her I am proud of her.  
 **SPOCK:** I shall. How are you feeling?  
 **AMANDA:** What did she cook?  
 **SPOCK:** Bull testicles.  
 **AMANDA:** Never a favorite of mine, not since that summer in Madrid. 

Spock looked up as he felt someone slide in to take a seat beside him at the table.

“Hey,” Kirk greeted with a smile. 

Smiling politely and glancing around, Spock saw that the chefs had arranged themselves at three separate tables; he was being joined at this one with Jim, Leonard, Janice, Carol, and Christine.

“I noticed you’re always texting with someone,” Jim said. “May I ask who?”

“You may. It is my mother – she lives in Seattle.”

A strange look passed over his face that Spock couldn’t decipher. “That’s nice, that you’re close with your family.”

“Are you not?”

The same expression, and this time Spock thought he’d classify it as sadness. “No. No, I’m not.”

“That is regrettable. Some would say my mother and I are too close.” Like Spock’s father.” But it is I that has refused to cut them. She has been ill, and she accuses me of being over-protective.”

“I’m sorry, Spock,” Jim said sincerely, and Spock felt his cheeks color – it was out of character for him to share so much personal information, but there was something about Kirk that made Spock trust him. 

“Thank you,” Spock replied and bent his head to wrap up his conversation with Amanda. 

**SPOCK:** I think I must go – we are having an early dinner. Can I call you later?  
 **AMANDA:** Of course darling – you know I’ll be up. Ciao.

Spock shook his head, worried; his mother had ignored his inquiry into her well-being, which did not bode well. 

“Something wrong?” Jim asked, picking up on his mood. He poured Spock a glass of water out of the pitcher the waiter had supplied. 

“I hope not.”

Sensing his reticence, Jim dropped the subject. 

A moment later, the waiter came over and began to take their orders. Spock asked him, in Thai, if the chef could prepare a particular grilled octopus dish he was fond of, as he hadn’t seen it on the menu.

The man smiled broadly, happy to be addressed in his native language. “I am sure he would, sir. We had it on the menu a long time ago, but octopus – it is not popular for American tastes.”

“We will not tell them what they are missing, then,” Spock replied, and was rewarded with a broad grin.

“You speak Thai?” Jim said. 

“Not very well, I think. The waiter was kind enough not to point out my errors in verb tense.”

“Have you ever been? To Thailand?” Janice asked.

“I spent six months there when I was sixteen. It is actually where Nyota and I met – her father was in the diplomatic corps, and had been stationed in Bangkok.”

“How excitin’.” Jan replied in her light Texan accent, “I’ve never even been to another country.”

“Well, now, some people would say that Texas was an entirely different country,” Leonard joked. 

“It’s the best country _you’ll_ ever get to, Len!” she laughed and smacked him lightly on the arm. 

Conversation drifted back to the following day’s challenge, and the chefs began discussing their dishes and plating ideas. Spock was relieved to be able to focus on something other than his mother’s health. Before long, the meal had come to an end, with Leonard and Jim having helped themselves to nearly half of Spock’s octopus, arguing over what could possibly be in the sauce. Spock did not mind, as Carol’s mock duck dish was savory and delicious, and they all wound up eating off each other’s plates anyway.

Afterwards, the chefs all walked back home, but when they got there, Spock found he felt restive and stood reluctantly beside the base of the stairs. 

“Not feeling much like going in?” Jim guessed as he approached.

“I am restless this evening. I would meditate, but I do not think I have the capacity for it at the moment.”

“Want to go for a walk?”

As the camera crew that had been shadowing them through dinner had apparently opted to stick with the main group and already gone inside, Spock jumped at the chance to take some time off from being constantly filmed. “Certainly.”

They took off down the hill and turned left, heading toward Golden Gate Park, where Jim had apparently been going on his jogs. 

“Sorry if I seemed nosy before, when I asked about you texting your mom,” Jim said at length. “I guess I just… I have been accused of leaping without looking.”

“There is no need to apologize. I shared as much as I intended. Perhaps it is just as well – to discuss one’s problems with others is a natural human need, is it not?” Spock could not explain his desire to connect with this man he barely knew, so he made a conscious decision not to.

“It is. And it seems like you’ve got more problems than most. How long has she been sick, your mom?”

“Just over a year. I spent much of the time caring for her. As a result… many things in my personal life suffered.”

“Like your restaurant?”

Spock’s mother Amanda had been diagnosed with Stage 3 liver cancer, and though early treatments had been promising, the prognosis was not positive. He had spent the last year caring for her, and in the interim, he’d both lost his restaurant (despite Nyota’s best efforts, it could not survive the loss of its executive chef for so long) and won the James Beard award. Both events had left him reeling, and though the application to be on Top Chef had been submitted before his mother fell ill, she had insisted he participate, saying it could be the opportunity of a lifetime. He had been fighting an uncharacteristic disquiet ever since, and had yet to find his equilibrium. 

“It seems some of my history is common knowledge, then.”

“Only what’s Google-able, I think. Also, Gaila fancies herself some sort of investigative journalist, though she still hasn’t figured out your last name, and it’s killing her.”

“I do not wish anyone to know,” Spock said, trying to quell his agitation. 

Spock’s family was well known, his father an internationally famous restaurateur, his mother a famed cookbook writer. He took pains to maintain his autonomy, never trading on his family name or connections for anything. He had taken the name Spock, a nickname given to him by his first nanny, as his legal name when he’d turned 18. There would be no information on his early life anyway, a situation he’d very carefully engineered over the years and was loath to reveal his background to anyone here or, indeed, anywhere.

And his background would certainly be of interest, both to his cast mates and the production.

Amanda’s family, the Graysons, were only slightly less notorious than the Kennedys, and that was only through careful spin put out by the international newspaper conglomerate her father had acquired in the 1970’s. When she’d married Sarek, the French-Indian nobody chef from Marseille, it had caused a minor scandal, not least of which was because she’d been pregnant with Spock at the time. Sarek, of course, had gone on to open _L’Vulcan_ , which had earned its first Michelin star within its first year. Sarek had parlayed his fame and talent into an international chain of high-end restaurants, his skill as a chef only slightly since eclipsed by his acumen as a business leader.

As Spock grew up, the family was always traveling the world, following Sarek from place to place as he opened his line of restaurants. Wherever they went, paparazzi followed, and Spock had learned the hard way to guard his privacy closely. As a result, he never made friends readily, nor did he find it easy to open up to the people he did come in contact with. 

Growing up in restaurant kitchens around the world, however, did engender in him a talent with food, and as was expected of him, he attended culinary school in Paris where he again met Nyota. She was Spock’s first true friend, though they’d had a brief romance when they were both 18. That soon fizzled, primarily because Spock realized he was gay, but they’d stayed close, with Nyota acting as his beard on those occasions when Spock had to be around his father, whose expectations of his son in all things had long ago been decided. Being as passionate about cooking as both his parents, Spock didn’t mind his career path being set for him, but he drew the line at obedience where it came to his love life. 

“I’ll discourage her if I can, Spock, don’t worry.” 

Spock was taken by Jim’s sudden sincerity, and wondered at the party-boy persona he’d strived so hard to maintain the last few days. “I do not know why you should, but I thank you.”

“We all have dirty laundry, Spock, and I dunno about you, but I’d rather mine not be aired on national television.”

They walked on in silence for several more minutes, lost in their individual thoughts, then, as if by mutual agreement, they turned and headed back towards the house.

“You are not at all what you seem, Jim, are you?” Spock said, giving voice to the thoughts that had been in his mind as they walked.

“’I am large, I contain multitudes,’” Jim quoted Whitman as unself-consciously as a person could.

“You are mocking me,” Spock said, stopping to look at him. 

“I mock only myself.” 

They were standing under a lamp post set into the wrought iron fence at the front of someone’s house; its light was soft and white, and made the blue of Kirk’s eyes seem to glow as he looked at Spock. For a moment, Spock thought he saw something in those eyes, a loneliness that matched his own, and he raised a hand toward Jim. Suddenly, the front door of the home banged open, and two teenaged girls came bounding out, giggling as they made their way down the steps towards the street. 

“Excuse us,” Spock murmured as he and Jim stepped aside to let them leave through the iron gate, and the mood was broken. “We should get back, I owe my mother a phone call.”

“You shouldn’t keep her waiting,” Jim agreed and they walked on at a brisk pace.

\----

The next day dawned bright and sunny, and the chefs had a rare free morning as they waited to begin cooking for the cocktail party. In the interim, several of them were asked to report to the kitchen to film the so-called “confessionals” that would be peppered throughout the episode, and this time Spock could not escape them. 

“The guys were asking about your name yesterday. Care to elaborate?”

“I do not.”

The producer Marnie, the same young woman who’d interviewed Jim days before, sighed. Spock suspected she was used to her subjects being more forthcoming. “What _is_ your last name, anyway? It’s not even on the contract you signed.”

“Spock is my legal name.”

“But your last name –“

“Is unpronounceable for an American tongue.” This was no wrong – his father’s surname contained 16 letters.

“Fine. What did you think of yesterday’s challenge?”

Spock was only too happy to discuss the food, and so went on at length about his admiration for Chef Cosentino’s work, and the excellent dishes put up by his competitors.

At long last, the time came for them all to pack up their food to go. The flurry of activity was as chaotic as usual, but Spock knew he’d packed all his mise en place carefully the day before, and so went out feeling quite confident. 

Later, he realized he should have taken even greater care.

As they were shown to their assigned stations, Spock began to unpack his materials, setting them out in the order he would need them. When he reached for the crème anglaise he’d infused with the sea urchins the day before, however, he found that it was missing. 

“No. No, no, no,” he murmured under his breath as he searched fruitlessly for the storage container that held the one element of his dish that would tie it all together.

“Spock? Something wrong?” Nyota called from her station.

“My uni crème is missing. I know I packed it, I know it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure. And I am quite sure it is now gone.”

Christine and Leonard wandered over at that moment, concern on their faces. “I saw you pack it,” Christine confirmed; Spock had asked her to taste it before he’d transferred it to the container, so her recollection was as good as his. 

“Something up?” Jim, too, had been attracted by the small drama unfolding, and Nyota explained the problem to him. “Well, can you make something else? What was the dish supposed to be?”

“The Admiral said he had enjoyed a tuna melt on the day of his wedding at a favorite diner, and I had endeavored to use that as inspiration for my dish, which was to be seared and confit tuna with uni crème and caviar. Without the sauce, the dish is nothing, it is boring, it is… food court food.”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “I doubt they serve confit of tuna at the Sbarro’s at the mall,” he said wryly. He moved over to Spock’s station and looked at the ingredients there. “What if you deconstructed it? You haven’t seared the tuna off yet, have you?”

Spock looked down at his station, Jim’s idea sparking several more in his head. “I could do sashimi,” he said thoughtfully. The tuna Gus had given him was the highest grade he’d seen this far from Japan, and he knew it would shine on its own. He made some mental calculations. “Nyota, do you have any more of the jicama you were using yesterday?”

“How much do you need?”

In the end, Spock pulled a completely different dish out of the wreckage of his original, with Jim and Nyota pitching in to find spare ingredients from some of their fellow contestants, who were happy to oblige. Though he was still disappointed to not have been able to give Admiral Barnett the dish he’d envisioned, the flavors of the new one were clean and the presentation, Spock thought, even more striking than he’d originally planned.

The time until service flew by, and soon the guests had descended upon them, and all worry for his dish-that-never-was was forgotten. Admiral Barnett and his wife were kind and effusive as Nyota’s team presented their dishes to them and their two sons, who were clearly also naval officers. Leonard’s shrimp and grits with smoked okra chips and bacon was a big hit with the family, as well as Christine’s grilled hanger steak sandwich with quail egg and arugula, inspired by Mrs. Barnett’s own dinner choice on her wedding day. Nyota’s barbecued quail with jicama slaw and compressed watermelon salad was so popular, she nearly ran out before the judges arrived.

“What have we here, Spock?” Padma asked as she, Tom, Chef Cosentino and Chris Pike arrived for their judges’ samples of the food. 

He stood up straight, his hands clasped behind him and described his dish: tuna two ways, sashimi and confit, with daikon foam, jicama chips and wasabi “caviar.” 

“Sounds delicious,” Pike commented, “and your presentation is breath-taking, Spock.”

“Thank you, sir.” Spock felt enormously pleased at the comment. 

“Can’t wait to try it,” Chef Cosentino added, and Spock felt suddenly relieved that he’d gotten through this challenge. 

The rest of the evening went along smoothly, and when most of the guests had gone, including the judges, Spock and the others had a chance to go around and taste each other’s dishes. As Spock was complimenting Brian on an exceptionally well-executed pastry, a surprised gasp behind him caught his attention. 

“Is that -? Is that what I think it is?” Christine said, pointing at something beneath Nero’s station.

“What?” he replied, confused. 

She crouched down and pulled out a container of what Spock recognized to be his missing uni crème. “That’s Spock’s sauce,” she said, an accusatory tone to her voice.

By now, two camera crews had caught up to the action, and Spock was mortified to find a camera trained upon him, to gauge his reaction. He carefully kept his face expressionless, standing tall with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I don’t know how it got there,” Nero said, blandly.

“I’m pretty sure _I do_ ,” Jim said, attracted by the drama. “You’ve been giving Spock the stinkeye all week. What, did you think you’d sabotage his dish?”

“That’s some accusation,” Nero pointed out, his face reddening.

“That’s some shitty thing to do,” Jim said, suddenly in the man’s face.

“You know nothing,” Nero said menacingly, not backing down.

“Jim!” Spock said, coming forward. “Please do not get involved.”

“Are you kidding? After what this guy did?” Several of the other chefs seemed to be in agreement; Spock saw a lot of nodding heads.

At this point, several of the producers had come over, and Marnie intervened. “What exactly happened?”

“Spock’s sauce was missing from his mise en place,” Christine supplied. “And I just found under Nero’s station.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Nero said. Spock watched him carefully; the man’s dark eyes glittered with their usual menace, but he could not discern if he was lying. It didn’t matter at this point anyway – service was over.

“Then how did it end up over here?” Jim asked.

“We stored our ingredients in the same refrigerator,” Spock said quietly. “Perhaps there was an error.”

“Yes, perhaps there was an error,” Nero said insincerely.

“Did anyone see him take it?” Marnie asked.

No one could say that they did. 

“So then if he’d realized it wasn’t his, why didn’t he say anything?” Jim pointed out. 

All eyes fell on Nero, who crossed his arms and gave no response. Spock merely wanted the day to be over.

\----

They were not in the “Stew Room” for long before Padma emerged and called for Nyota’s team. They rose and went to the Judges’ Table, where they were informed that theirs were the guests’ favorite dishes of the night. Spock stood quietly as the judges discussed their food with each of the chefs, quietly pleased that they’d won and that the drama surrounding his dish had not adversely affected the outcome for his team.

“Spock, we heard you had a bit of difficulty with your dish,” Padma commented.

“Indeed, my original concept featured seared tuna instead of sashimi, and it was all to be tied together with an uni-infused crème anglaise.”

“And you what, pulled the other dish out of your hat?” Tom asked.

“I never could have done it without the assistance from my team, as well as Jim Kirk, who lent me the agar-agar to make the wasabi caviar, and Hikaru Sulu who spared me the daikon. I do not think the dish would have been successful without their contributions.”

“That’s the kind of teamwork that makes a good kitchen into a great one, chefs,” Pike said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Well done. Very well done.”

“But what happened to the uni crème?” Tom asked. 

“It was… misplaced,” Spock answered.

“Or stolen,” Christine said darkly, and all eyes were suddenly on her. “Come on, don’t tell me any of you’d find someone else’s sauce among your things and _not say anything._ ”

“There is no proof any malice was intended,” Spock pointed out, and Nyota snorted. Spock looked at her and raised an eyebrow, trying to convey to her his desire to drop the issue.

“Nyota, did you have something to add?” Tom asked. 

“No, chef,” she said, looking at her shoes.

“If anything shady is going on here, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Tom assured them. “We don’t look kindly on chefs sabotaging others.”

“Yes, chef,” she said.

“Chef Cosentino, will you please announce the winner?” Padma said, and all eyes were on her.

“Given the difficulties faced tonight, I’d say the winner of this challenge should be even more proud of himself. Spock, congratulations on having the winning dish.”

Though he heard his name, Spock still couldn’t quite believe it. “Am I indeed?” he said as the rest of his team patted him on the back and gave him hugs. They were sent back to the Stew Room with instructions to send Scotty’s team back for judging.

Once the transition had been made – and Spock did not like to see the looks on any of their faces, especially Jim’s, as they marched off to be informed that they were on the bottom, and that one of them would be asked to go home – the team settled into their seats and waited.

As he sat there, Spock felt Nero’s eyes on him and he glanced over at him. Nero’s face was impassive, but yet again, his dark eyes glittered with what Spock could only term menace. Whether his acquisition of Spock’s sauce had been a mistake or deliberate, he’d still said nothing; it was clear the man hated Spock, and he could not imagine why. For the second time in as many days, Spock held Nero’s gaze unflinchingly, until the other man blinked and looked away. 

Nyota turned in her seat close beside him and draped her legs over his; she often did this when she wanted a foot massage and so he obliged her, relieved for something to do to relieve the tension he himself felt. “I’m happy to see you’re not letting him get to you,” she murmured to him quietly as he pushed a shoe off and began on her instep.

“No one ‘gets’ to me,” Spock said with a confidence he could pretend he felt; he thought Jim Kirk could, though, and he was surprised to realize he wanted it.

“That’s the Spock I know,” she said. “Even Sarek would have been proud of you today.”

“I daresay you are correct.” Many times as a child, when he’d gotten into fights with the bullies that called him names because of his mixed parentage, Spock’s father had admonished him for rising to their bait, insisting it was not their family’s way to allow emotional outbursts, and that he only needed to apply his intellect to prevail. Today he could admit to himself that that position was correct.

At the end of the day, young Janice Rand was asked to pack her knives, and she emerged with tears falling down her cheeks, unable to speak as she conveyed her goodbyes. Spock felt bad for her – he’d had a good time chatting with her at dinner the previous evening, and it was a shame to see her go.

\----

“Mother,” Spock said, happy to finally see her; it had been several days since they’d last had a face-to-face talk over Skype.

“Darling, how are you?” Amanda said warmly. She wore the ugly brown hand-knit sweater Nyota had made for her years before, pulling it around her thin shoulders as she adjusted her own computer screen. Her voice seemed weak, which alarmed Spock.

“I am well. How are you? You look pale.”

She frowned and rolled her eyes. “Oh Spock, I’m a WASP, I always look pale. How did the challenge go today?”

“It… was challenging. Nevertheless, I prevailed.”

“You won? Congratulations. Oh, I’m so proud!”

Her eyes welled up with tears, and as she wiped them away, he could see her hand was trembling. “Mother, are you quite well? Please tell me, I am very concerned.”

“Today wasn’t a good day, darling,” she said, and he knew what it cost her to admit it.

“You must see Dr. M’Benga.”

“I have, Spock, and he has seen me. There’s nothing to be done, you know.”

“I will come to you – you shouldn’t be there alone.”

“Now, now, don’t be dramatic. My assistant is here, and your father will be home tomorrow.”

“Still, I should – “

She interrupted him, her voice regaining some of its strength. “Stay in San Francisco, and come home to me the next Top Chef, that’s what you _should_ do.”

“Mother, you are more important to me than some stupid contest.”

“And you are more important to me than my illness, darling. Promise me you will stay. Promise me you will do your best to win.”

“Mother, I –“

“Promise me. I know you will win. I know you are the best chef in the country, now it’s time to make them all see, Spock. Make them _see you. At last._ Promise.”

He lowered his eyes, thinking it through. All his life he’d lived in his father’s shadow, all his professional life he’d strived to excel in his cooking, to make a name for himself, to be independent. Until today, he’d felt like the invisible man among the cast, but so many of them had leapt to his defense when the uni crème had been found (and he honestly did not know whether to believe Nero had stolen it), and had helped him recover when his dish could have been a disaster, that he couldn’t help but be touched. 

His mother, too, thought he could win, and though he wanted to see her and take care of her, he also didn’t want to waste her faith in him. And he had never been able to refuse her anything, not in his entire life. 

“I promise, Mother.”

“That’s my boy.”

\----

Thank you for your time.


End file.
